Anton and Julian Kuerti take a bow with the Boston Pops.
The 70-year-old father is a world renowned classical pianist, the 32-year-old son one of the world’s top up and coming conductors, currently serving as associate conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Their last performance together, in March 2008, has grown into almost legendary status.
Anton Kuerti – who has lived in the same house for 40 years within walking distance of Jarvis Collegiate Institute, where his son graduated from – was in Boston specifically to watch his son Julian Kuerti make his conducting debut for the Boston Symphony.
But as fate would have it, guest pianist Leon Fleisher who was to play Beethoven’s Emperor Piano Concerto had to bow out because of food poisoning.
Julian called his dad two hours before the show to ask if he could fill in. Like any good dad, he was only too pleased to help his son out of his jam.
It didn’t hurt, of course, that the elder Kuerti was more than qualified to take on the task.
He is considered one of the world’s most renowned Beethoven interpreters on piano, and has recorded all five Beethoven piano concertos – including the Emperor Piano Concerto – with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
The resulting performance was hailed by the Boston critics.
Coincidentally, the day after the Boston tour-de-force, official announcement came that the elder Kuerti was to receive a Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award as part of the 2008 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards.
Julian, himself, is no stranger to saving the day.
This past summer he had to fill in for his ailing boss, BSO musical director James Levine, as conductor of the BSO for early July performances in the summer series.
And in November, on very short notice, the Jarvis Collegiate grad had to fill in for a Russian guest conductor who, after a week of rehearsals, abruptly pulled out upon finding his prominence in the billing not up to his liking.
Julian, with just one rehearsal, had to take over what the Boston Globe critic called “a lengthy and decidedly nonstandard program” for its entire four-performance run.
He ended up receiving a robust ovation and the orchestral musicians insisted he take a solo bow.
The Boston Globe critic said he “rose to the occasion and pulled off a triumphant concert.”
Even the miffed Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky told The Boston Globe that “in our days, many young conductors have no right to conduct, but he really does. Now he can realize it. I’m very glad.”
Ironically, the last-minute substitution forced Julian to cancel a musical reunion planned for that very weekend in Edmonton where he was to guest conduct the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra with the elder Kuerti on piano. They had to settle for just one Kuerti.
On Jan. 11, however, they are slated to get back together again for their first shared bill since March, making their home debut – only this time, it’s completely planned.
While the younger Kuerti could not be reached as he was scheduled to be out of the country until mid-week, the elder Kuerti said to share billing with his son “is wonderful.”
He thinks they’ll mesh just fine again on stage.
“We get along now very well, we didn’t always,” Anton said with a hearty laugh. “And we respect each other.”
While it definitely “adds to the excitement,” he added “once you’re on stage, it’s not that different. You’re concentrating on doing your own job and staying together and working together.”
A childhood prodigy, Anton grew up in the Boston area and was able to make his own debut with the Boston Symphony when he was 11 years old so to have his son with the orchestra is a special thrill.
“It’s a big deal to be assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony. It’s a fantastic launch to a career.”
The two will perform Sunday, 3 p.m. at the University of Toronto at the MacMillan Theatre in the Edward Johnson Building, as part of the Mooredale Concert series, which is now in its 20th year, and which is very close to their hearts.
It was started by the late Kristine Bogyo, wife of Anton and mother of Julian (and brother Rafael), who passed away in April 2007, after a lengthy battle with cancer.
In 2005, Bogyo was awarded the Governor General’s Meritorious Service Medal for her tireless work in creating the prestigious Rosedale-based Mooredale youth orchestras.
“Both (concert series and youth orchestra) are doing very well, but of course there’s a sadness too because these were started by my wife,” said Anton, who is now the artistic director.
“She was to have been present on Sunday and also to have been present when Julian conducted the Boston Symphony.”
The youth orchestras, home to more than 100 aspiring musicians from 6 to 20 years of age, are based in Rosedale at historic Mooredale House, 146 Crescent Rd. with concerts held at Rosedale Heights School, 711 Bloor St. E. at the Castle Frank Subway Station.
Julian went on from Jarvis Collegiate to the University of Toronto, earning an honours degree in engineering physics. He specialized in quantum optics, which is no basket weaving course, and his fourth-year thesis was titled “Lasing and Amplified Spontaneous Emission in Periodic and Quasi-Periodic Photonic Band Gap Materials”.
Despite heavy academic commitments, however, music still remained very much on the front burner, and he served as concert master and violin soloist at the Hart House Orchestra.
In the end, music won out.
After taking a year off – in which he played electric violin for a Toronto-based world music band during a tour of Brazil – he returned to the University of Toronto in 2000 where he began conducting studies in the faculty of music department.
That summer he was accepted at the renowned Pierre Monteux School for Conductors in Maine and finished up his studies in 2005 with Lutz Kohler at the University of the Arts Berlin.
He already has compiled extensive guest conducting credits in Europe and South and North America, including last year’s debut with his hometown Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which his father has also performed and recorded with, of course, on numerous occasions.
This weekend’s official father-son local debut was made possible by a fortuitous set of circumstances in which, basically, the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra (HPO) on Jan. 10 will host the Kuertis as featured guests in Hamilton.
And then on Jan. 11, so to speak, the Kuertis will host the entire HPO at their Mooredale Concert Series, which explains why the tab is a tad higher for this installment in this affordable series.
“It’s probably the most ambitious event Mooredale Concerts has ever put on, certainly one of the most expensive just by the fact that there’s full orchestra,” said Anton.
At the same time, he said it was also a golden opportunity.
“It was a relatively economical way of getting this concert here because we don’t have to pay for the rehearsals, we just have to pay an extra fee for the musicians and transportation.”
As far as the program, he said “I’m performing two pieces for piano orchestra by Mendelssohn, the Concerto in G Minor which is very popular and well known and the less well known but wonderful piece, the Capriccio Brillante.
“And then my son is going to conduct some exciting Bartok sketches, I think they’re all dances and then beautiful Symphony No. 8 (by Beethoven) will close the program.”
A special art display will be on sale at the concert with paintings by the late Janos Buda, who was very poor but who left a treasure of art in his St. James Town apartment when he died in 2005.
“He came to all the Mooredale concerts and he did sketches of the artists. These were part of his estate which has come to us.
“We are going to have those on sale for the benefit of Mooredale Concerts and people even get 75 per cent of the price as a tax receipt.”
MUSIC NOTES
While Sunday, Jan. 11 will provide an opportunity to hear Anton – one of the world’s foremost Beethoven interpreters – play a Beethoven concerto with full orchestra, the following Friday, Jan. 16, 2 to 3:30 p.m., you can hear him talk about Beethoven.
His combined lecture-demonstration, hosted by the Royal Conservatory of Music at its recently refurbished main home at 273 Bloor St. W. (in the Conservatory Theatre), will focus on Beethoven’s third concerto.
It’s part of a five-part series with Anton focusing on each one of the five Beethoven concertos.
Admission is free.
Also upcoming on Anton’s busy schedule is a performance by the Mooredale Youth Orchestra tentatively for Sunday, March 15, at 3 p.m.
Kuerti will lead them through Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2.
For more on Mooredale, log on to www.mooredaleconcerts.com
